United States or Mali ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
During the night the blockading vessels had been warped close into the shore, and, the wall of the seafront being lower than those on the land side, the crews, by means of platforms erected on the decks, engaged the besieged from a better level. There also, though attempts at escalade were frequent, the object was chiefly to hold the garrison in place.
The time of Louis XV. furnished examples of none but secondary expeditions, unless we except that of Richelieu against Minorca, which was very glorious as an escalade, but less extraordinary as a descent. The whole amounted to nineteen ships of the line, eighteen smaller vessels of war, and one hundred and fifty transports, carrying ten thousand men. The expedition besieged and captured Havana.
At daybreak, on the 16th February, the troops were disembarked before Balanguinguy under cover of a fire from the ships, and after a little resistance from the Sooloo men who were excessively frightened by the appearance of the steamers, whose facility of movement they were quite unprepared for the fort, consisting of bamboo, was taken by escalade after a brave resistance.
The principal entrance was locked, but we effected an easy escalade, scaled a low parapet, and descended into the place behind the scenes. It was as light as day, and the solitude was complete. The two slim columns, as we sat on the broken benches, stood there like a pair of silent actors.
His aides- de-camp went before him, and they themselves led the troops to the escalade. At last the gates were opened, and Napoleon entered Ratisbon. He spent three days there, preparing his movement of attack against Vienna, which was slightly and badly defended, fortifying his positions, and taking precautions against an unexpected return of the Archduke Charles.
To 'compete with life, whose sun we cannot look upon, whose passions and diseases waste and slay us to compete with the flavour of wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching of fire, the bitterness of death and separation here is, indeed, a projected escalade of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress coat, armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the insufferable sun.
Those who were obliged, in the course of duty, to run from one place to another, had, the moment they were observed, a hundred shots at them. The enemy, with some reason, conceived that this occupation of the town was but a preparatory step to an entry by escalade into their fort.
Nearly all the surrounding habitants were either neutrals or inclined to side with the Americans, though not as fighting men. Carleton's order to bring in all the ladders, so as to prevent an escalade of the walls, had met with general opposition and evasion. Nothing seemed wanting but a good working plan.
The first assailants were hurled from their ladders, the city was roused, and the Duke of Nemours was soon on the spot, ordering burning pitch hoops, atones, and other missiles to be thrown down upon the invaders. The escalade was baffled; yet once more that night, just before dawn, the king in person renewed the attack on the Faubourg St. Germain.
Between each gingall was a small hole in the parapet which held an earthen vessel filled with slaked lime, ready to be flung in the faces of an enemy attempting to escalade the walls. A considerable number of Chinese troops were stationed on the ramparts, with gay-coloured flags of various devices flying above their heads.
Word Of The Day